End of the School Year
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50 free End of the School Year trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The last days of the school year have their own traditions: caps and gowns, farewell speeches, yearbook signatures and a countdown to the final bell. Many of those customs are older and stranger than they look, and the summer that follows has a history of its own, full of accidental inventions and odd facts about the sky, the beach and the campfire. This quiz mixes all of it. There are questions on graduation ceremonies and where their words and music come from, on how other countries mark the end of term, on summer treats, toys and stargazing, and on famous schools, teachers and students from books, films and television. A handful of review questions from history, science and language round things out. It is written for classroom parties, end-of-year assemblies, staff-room quizzes and family car rides. Most questions can be reasoned out by a mixed-age group, a few are there to stretch the quiz champions, and every answer comes with a short explanation worth reading aloud.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which stretchy material got its English name because it was so good at wiping away pencil marks?
Rubber
Rubber earned its name after Joseph Priestley noticed in 1770 that a lump of it was excellent for rubbing pencil marks off paper. Before then, people erased with crustless bread.
Q 02Which frozen treat did 11-year-old Frank Epperson invent by leaving a drink and stirring stick outside overnight?
Popsicle
Popsicle history began on a back porch in Oakland in 1905, when the cold night froze the soda mix around the stick. Epperson waited almost twenty years before patenting it as the 'Epsicle'.
Q 03Which summer toy was invented by Lonnie Johnson, an engineer who had worked for NASA and the Air Force?
Super Soaker
Super Soaker water guns grew out of an accident: Johnson was testing a new kind of refrigeration system in his bathroom when it shot a powerful stream of water across the room.
Q 04Which field-day contest between two teams was an official Olympic event from 1900 to 1920?
Tug of war
Tug of war was dropped after the 1920 Games, when the Olympic committee trimmed its program. At the 1900 Games, Danish and Swedish pullers joined forces as a mixed team and took first place.
Q 05School buses are painted yellow partly because lettering of which color is easiest to read on it at dawn?
Black
Black lettering on yellow proved the most legible in semi-darkness, so a 1939 conference made the pairing a national standard. Professor Frank Cyr gathered the delegates in New York.
Q 06Which form of carbon, mixed with clay, makes up the so-called lead in a modern pencil?
Graphite
Graphite was thought to be a form of lead when a large deposit turned up in the 1500s, and the name stuck. Adding more or less clay to its powder sets how hard a pencil writes.
Q 07Which author's last book published in his lifetime, 'Oh, the Places You'll Go!', became a favorite graduation gift?
Dr. Seuss
Dr. Seuss published the book in January 1990, the year before he died at 87. Its sales still spike every April to June, as families buy it for graduates from kindergarten to college.
Q 08Which word, coined by a mathematician's nine-year-old nephew, names the number 1 followed by 100 zeros?
Googol
Googol was the idea of Milton Sirotta in 1920, and his uncle popularized it in a 1940 book about mathematics. The founders of Google later named their search engine after it, with a changed spelling.
Q 09Which medieval explorer shares his name with a swimming-pool tag game where 'it' keeps both eyes closed?
Marco Polo
Marco Polo supplies both calls in the game: the tagger shouts 'Marco' and everyone else must answer 'Polo', giving away where they are. Nobody has found a real link to the Italian trader.
Q 10What is the flat, square graduation cap called, a name it shares with a bricklayer's tool?
Mortarboard
Mortarboard caps look like the square board a mason loads with wet mortar. The hat probably took shape in Italy about 500 years ago and may have grown out of the clergy's biretta.
Q 11Which part of a graduation cap do American students move from the right side to the left near the ceremony's end?
Tassel
Tassel turning is typically done by the whole graduating class in unison. Tassels only reached academic caps in the 18th century; before that, a plain tuft decorated the middle.
Q 12At an American graduation, which title goes to the top-ranked student, who traditionally gives the farewell speech?
Valedictorian
Valedictorian comes from the Latin for 'to say farewell', because the title's holder was traditionally the final speaker of the day. Most schools pick theirs by grade point average.
Q 13Which English composer wrote the 'Pomp and Circumstance' march that plays as graduates walk in at American ceremonies?
Edward Elgar
Q 21What name is given to the day in late June when the Northern Hemisphere has its longest stretch of daylight?
Summer solstice
Summer solstice arrives on 20 or 21 June, when the North Pole reaches its maximum tilt toward the Sun. South of the equator, the longest day comes in December instead.
Q 22Which summer month did the Roman Senate name after Julius Caesar because he had been born in it?
July
July was known as Quintilis, the fifth month, until 44 BC, a leftover from the days when the Roman calendar began in March.
Q 23The sweltering 'dog days' of summer are named after which bright star that follows Orion across the sky?
Sirius
Sirius, the Dog Star, returned to the dawn sky just as the hottest weeks set in, so ancient astrologers blamed it for heat, drought, fever and even mad dogs.
Edward Elgar was in the audience the first time it was played at a graduation: Yale used the march in June 1905, at the ceremony where he collected an honorary doctorate of music.
Q 14Which word for a graduation ceremony literally means a beginning, the start of life after school?
Commencement
Commencement is the act of commencing, so the name treats the day as a starting line and not a finish. Some colleges prefer to call the same event a convocation or a congregation.
Q 15Which Latin honor, meaning 'with highest praise', is the top of three levels awarded by most American colleges?
Summa cum laude
Summa cum laude outranks the other two standard levels, which translate as 'with great praise' and simply 'with praise'. Some colleges award it only in extraordinary circumstances.
Q 16Which shock-rock act scored a 1972 hit with 'School's Out', which went to number one in Britain?
Alice Cooper
Alice Cooper set out to bottle the final three minutes of the last day of school, a wait the singer compared to a slow fuse burning. The single also reached number seven in America.
Q 17In which country does the school year begin in April, around the time the cherry trees blossom?
Japan
Japan opens its academic year in April, just as cherry blossom season arrives in big cities such as Tokyo and Kyoto. Its six-week summer break therefore falls in the middle of the school year.
Q 18In which country do graduating high-schoolers celebrate 'russ' by wearing colored overalls for weeks each spring?
Norway
Norway's russ season traditionally runs from around 20 April to 17 May, the national Constitution Day. Its first red caps appeared in 1905, as a sign that the wearer was about to enter higher education.
Q 19Prom, the formal dance held for graduating high-school students, takes its short name from which longer word?
Promenade
Promenade dances served much the same purpose as debutante balls in their early days. Historians think colleges were holding them as early as the late 19th century.
Q 20Which Latin phrase for the school a person graduated from literally means 'nourishing mother'?
Alma mater
Alma mater began as an honorific for mother goddesses such as Ceres. Only by the early 17th century had the nursing mother become an allegory for universities.
Q 24Fireflies, the glowing insects of summer evenings, actually belong to which larger group of insects?
Beetles
Beetles of the family Lampyridae, more than 2,400 species strong, are what people call fireflies or lightning bugs. They glow mainly at twilight, and the point of the show is to attract mates.
Q 25Which campfire treat did 1920s Girl Scouts make from graham crackers, chocolate and a toasted marshmallow?
S'more
S'more is a contraction of 'some more'. A Connecticut newspaper described Girl Scouts eating 'Some-mores' in 1925, and the shortened name appeared by the 1930s.
Q 26Which summer picnic fruit belongs to the gourd family, making it a relative of cucumbers and pumpkins?
Watermelon
Watermelon is 91% water, and botanists class the fruit as a pepo, a kind of berry with a thick rind and no internal divisions.
Q 27On a bottle of sunscreen, what do the letters SPF stand for?
Sun protection factor
Sun protection factor ratings were introduced by the Austrian chemist Franz Greiter, who had been selling a 'glacier cream' since 1946. The scale became the global standard for UVB protection.
Q 28Beachgoers watch the sea rise and fall about twice a day mainly because of the gravity of which body?
Moon
The Moon does most of the pulling, and the Sun adds a tidal force only 46% as large. Most coasts see two high waters and two low waters each day.
Q 29Which toy takes its name from a Connecticut pie company whose empty tins college students loved to toss?
Frisbee
Frisbee became the brand name of Wham-O's Pluto Platter in 1957, once its founders learned that students were already calling the disc that. Their craze had begun with Frisbie Pie Company tins.
Q 30Which place in California holds the record for the hottest air temperature measured on Earth, set in 1913?
Death Valley
Death Valley reached 134 °F (56.7 °C) at Furnace Creek on 10 July 1913, a reading the World Meteorological Organization lists as the hottest ever recorded.